Welcome to my
Bob Dylan™ Musical Roots
and Influences Blog
(a previous incarnation was bobdylanroots.com)
of Manfred Helfert, Mainz, Germany.
Any copyrighted items are included here for "nonprofit educational purposes" (one of the criteria of "fair use", Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107). Most audio recordings linked to (but not hosted) in this blog are believed to be either uncopyrighted or to have lapsed into Public Domain in the EU where this blog originates.

Donnerstag, 26. Mai 2011

Mainz Dylan Symposium, May 26, 2011 (Part 1 of 3 attended and taped)

Today, I attended the first three presentations of the Bob Dylan Symposium "Bob Dylan und die Revolution der populären Musik" (Bob Dylan & The Revolution in Popular Music) at Johannes-Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany (I left and will not attend tomorrow's presentations, because I "had enough").

On a positive note, Prof. Dr. Lamping NEVER even mentioned Clinton Heylin once, but stressed the importance of what he called "fan culture" for serious scholarship, and voiced a certain (rather academically-biased) astonishment at the quality of research to be found, for example, on internet "fan" sites.

Nevertheless, his remarks about Dylan's nomination for the Nobel Prize in Literature (which Lamping feels he will never get and does not really deserve) made it all too clear, that academia, especially in Germany, has problems "justifying" Dylan research -- too many of his "laudatory" remarks had an almost apologetic undertone.